Author Topic: stopping ForumMaster from destroying BattleMaster  (Read 132037 times)

Tom

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removed a couple posts that had nothing to do with the topic anymore.

Dante Silverfire

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Tom,

I think that while closing down the local forums makes some measure of sense in the immediate term, it won't solve any long-term problems. It will prevent some of the bickering that occurs and perhaps relegate a few people to spend more time IC seeking information, but overall I think this will be a negative thing for the game. The Local forums don't need to be removed, they simply need to be harshly moderated.

The fact of the matter is that the local forums are the single most frequented part of the forum if I had to make a guess. I certainly spend most of my time there, and I believe currently have posted over 1600 times on the forum. While the forum is not the game, it is a means by which to retain interest and passion about the game. The local forums allow me to interact with players I don't always interact with and be kept abreast of situations on other continents. I can find out what is happening on East Continent while I don't have a character there, and if something gets interesting I can make one. This is a positive for the game.

While I understand there are many negatives that have come out of the local forums, I firmly believe that these would be eliminated if they were simply moderated with harsh and quick action. Ad Hominem attacks receive fast deletion of posts, and moderation points. Forum suspensions, and bans to be handed out if people are an issue, without mercy. The forum isn't a part of the main game, so there should be no reason to go easy on this. The problem is that if you eliminate the local forums, you eliminate much of what keeps the passion going for some of your heaviest contributing players. It is these players, which I'll include myself in it, that are leading realms, making decisive things happen, and fueling the passion of those who aren't on the forum. Is it particularly healthy for the game that it is dependent upon such a group of players to keep it going? No. But, the game is practically dying anyway, and we don't need anymore reasons to take away interest of your most heavily invested players.

You seem heavily inclined to simply shut down part or all of the forum going into this thread to begin with. While I understand the reasoning, I caution you as well against the simple confirmation bias you may see here. While many have agreed with you. Many have also opposed your views. This action while it may seem like a simple solution to a large problem will have a domino effect that is difficult to fully grasp.

As a personal example: When I play battle-master I usually do so for hours at a time. Maybe 1 hour in the morning, and 2-4 hours in the evening. About half of this time is spent reading and writing letters. I usually write anywhere from 10-75 letters in a single day, sometimes from a single character when I am leading a realm and trying to build fun for other players. About 10% of that time is spent chatting on IRC with people in my realm to either set up RP's, discuss in-game events, or communicate quickly to make plans before sending the real letters in-game to confirm what we want our characters to do. The last 40% though is spent on the forums. I read what is going on with other realms, what people are saying about my realms, and what is being discussed to improve the game. I do this while thinking of what to write in my letters in-game. If the forums are removed, I'd have nothing to keep me held into the game for the long duration that I play, while I wait for letter responses. A large amount of time is sometimes needed by ruling characters and their players to really create a fun and engaging environment for their realm. This one person's efforts can positively (or negatively) effect a realm of 20, 30, 50, or 70 players. These players are also drivers for interactions with other realms and thus you have perhaps 10-15 players on a single continent which essentially control the flow of fun of your game. I would guess that a vast majority (perhaps 90%- made up statistic) of these rulers are played by players with forum accounts in the first two pages of # of forum posts.

If you inadvertently cut out the passion of this player base or don't find some other way to divert it and make it continue, you'll have cut out the legs of your game at the knee. A good ruler makes or breaks a realm's fun. I am not saying that there is an easy solution to this forum post problem, but I believe you could very easily create a far worse situation if this action proceeds without further consideration of its possible consequences.

-Silverfire
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egamma

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Silverfire,
It sounds like you are far from being the typical BattleMaster player. It sounds like you are an outstanding player, at least in terms of the time you spend devoted to the game. And the amount of time you spend on the forums doesn't seem to detract from your game.

But for your more typical player--say someone who spends an hour between the game and the forums--it would make a HUGE difference if they spent that entire hour writing letters instead of spending 30 minutes in the game and 30 minutes on the forum. Imagine what battlemaster would be like if all the effort put into the forums, went in the game. Think about all the interesting plots, religions, etc, that would spring from having that energy redirected. I simply don't have "time" to play the game much because of the time I spend on the forum; and that's bad for the game. My characters are far too quiet. I even have an open character slot because I didn't want to split my "30 minutes" between 4 characters anymore. The people I play with deserve that, at least.

I say we give the lack of local forums a shot. We can always bring back the islands if we need to.

If you are waiting for replies, why not work on the wiki? There's always work to be done; just pick a topic in the helpline forum and make sure that it's on the wiki. If you want to post a link to the new/corrected wiki page in the helpline topic, I can even lock the topic after the wiki is updated to help you keep track of what you've added to the wiki.

Dante Silverfire

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If you are waiting for replies, why not work on the wiki? There's always work to be done; just pick a topic in the helpline forum and make sure that it's on the wiki. If you want to post a link to the new/corrected wiki page in the helpline topic, I can even lock the topic after the wiki is updated to help you keep track of what you've added to the wiki.

The wiki is boring and feels like work, while the forums is interesting. It's really that simple.

Silverfire,
It sounds like you are far from being the typical BattleMaster player.

I realize I am likely in the top 1% of those who spend time on the game.

But for your more typical player--say someone who spends an hour between the game and the forums--it would make a HUGE difference if they spent that entire hour writing letters instead of spending 30 minutes in the game and 30 minutes on the forum. Imagine what battlemaster would be like if all the effort put into the forums, went in the game. Think about all the interesting plots, religions, etc, that would spring from having that energy redirected. I simply don't have "time" to play the game much because of the time I spend on the forum; and that's bad for the game. My characters are far too quiet. I even have an open character slot because I didn't want to split my "30 minutes" between 4 characters anymore. The people I play with deserve that, at least.

I think though that based upon the simple sheer amount of time I've spent on the game, that to play the higher reaches of the game requires an enormous input of time. A typical player, who spends an hour between the game and the forums, even if they spent it all on the game, could not hope to rule a realm on Atamara at least. If they did, at least one of three things would happen:

1. Their realm would be put in a bad spot diplomatically
2. Their realm would lack internal interest and grow boring from lack of ruler stimulus
3. They or their realm would be taken advantage of by those spending more time on coordinating efforts.

A good ruler provides positive influence within their realm, positive influence outside of their realm, and a stimulating environment for conflict and action for all involved.

I assert that the #1 problem we face is a lack of good rulers.

Relating this statement back to the topic: The forum provides a means for cultivating good ruler players and demonstrating positive things that other players can emulate in what it means to be a good ruler. While I am completely 100% biased, I believe I have made a very decent example of what a ruler character should provide in their realm. I couldn't have done this without interacting with others on the forums and learning from them. Likewise, I couldn't have influence many more players to them begin emulating my own ideas and trying to be more engaging in their own realms. This may sound like a lot of self-gloating, but I have personal messages from many sources in this regard. I could be wrong, but I believe the forums, and specifically the local forums have been a direct cause for this success.
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jaune

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I hope you realize, that even thought many things you did as ruler were inspired by forums... also, things which should have not been known certain people IG got to know those things through forums which eventually caused a lot trouble to you and your realm.

What i find utterly annoying is that there is some things discussed in forums, which has been tried to be as secret for various reasons. It spoils "surprise" effect and you can be 100% sure that some people take advantage of the information they get through forums... were it false or true information spreaded here.

If it is spreaded through game, it has more real effects and it can be reacted in game. If someone on my realm says on forums "Darka is preparing to attack Silnaria!" I cant react on it IG, but you can prepare your self for it. I did enjoy some parts of these discussions, but lately... there is more and more Player vs. Player setups.

I dont mind atleast temporar shutdown of these, maybby we can take em back at some point. But lets see if we get something good from this.

-jaune
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feyeleanor

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I'm surprised to find myself the 116th most frequent poster when I'm very far from being a forum regular, so it's clearly a very small community who're routinely active.

Much of this thread is about how awful the local boards are, and there's some truth to that charge. Particular posters who refuse to separate IG from OOC seem to use any and every opportunity to bash those they perceive as enemies. This is a lousy way to play the game and makes the individuals in question look like the most extraordinary douchebags. However for every one of those there are a half-dozen regular posters in those boards who are friendly, helpful and often insightful.

I don't think those latter discussions hurt the game at all, any more than when any bunch of gamers meet up socially and swap war stories. Indeed as a player I very much enjoy finding out how other players feel about events in parts of the game where I'm active - not to mention getting some insight into events elsewhere.

The question is how to restrain the handful of forum bullies so that the rest of us can enjoy these discussions. Perhaps increasingly severe forum bans for frequent offenders?

Geronus

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But for your more typical player--say someone who spends an hour between the game and the forums--it would make a HUGE difference if they spent that entire hour writing letters instead of spending 30 minutes in the game and 30 minutes on the forum. Imagine what battlemaster would be like if all the effort put into the forums, went in the game. Think about all the interesting plots, religions, etc, that would spring from having that energy redirected. I simply don't have "time" to play the game much because of the time I spend on the forum; and that's bad for the game. My characters are far too quiet. I even have an open character slot because I didn't want to split my "30 minutes" between 4 characters anymore. The people I play with deserve that, at least.

So, out of the hour (say) that you have to play each day, you consciously choose to take time away from the game to spend on the forum? How interesting. Why do you choose to do that, especially if you acknowledge that it's bad for your game and your characters are too quiet? Doesn't really make any sense, unless of course you find the forum to be more interesting than the game itself. Do you?

Personally, the time I spend on the forum comes after I have finished whatever it is I'm doing in the game; if time is limited, the game gets what I have until I've done what needs doing, then if I have time and feel like it I check out the forum. I would be very surprised if a large number of the players who post on the forums frequently would say that doing so takes away from what they'd otherwise give to the game, especially considering that the most active forum posters are also some of the most active players in general. People like Chenier, Vellos, Indirik and Anaris are hardly the sort of players who make drone characters or aren't putting sufficient time into the game. Taking away the Local board on the forum isn't going to change anything for them, other than to take away a venue for discussions that they evidently enjoy participating in. What an amazing victory for the community. By the same token, it's not going to magically breathe more life back into the game since the players who post a lot on the forum are already putting as much into the game as they're prepared to. To think otherwise is likely wishful thinking.

Seriously, the people who post here all the time aren't the ones who could stand to be putting more effort into the game; by and large, they are already the most passionate, committed and active players the game has left. All you're doing by shutting down the Local board is taking away something that they enjoy and making it harder for us to get to know each other and talk about the one passion that we all share: Battlemaster. Seriously, no one has yet been able to articulate any demonstrable, concrete benefit that is going to come out of this decision. The only thing you can honestly say for sure will happen is that there will be a little less arguing that might lead to flaming, but that's a pretty natural side effect of taking away people's ability to express themselves at all. "A few people are mean to each other, so let's punish everyone by forbidding them from talking about the subjects that they're most interested in! No passion, no arguing! Everyone wins!"

Elegant

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After reading 7 pages of this topic, I find that there are both advantages and disadvantages of closing the Locals. How about we make a compromise?

1. Let there be Locals in forums. The only purpose should be News papers. There may be a direct link from the game world to its Local in forum. Things must be kept completely civil through moderation.

2. Let there be a different fan controlled website for Local discussions, where people continue doing what they are doing now in locals. This website should not be officially related to BM, but, the moderators of BM may become moderators of that website. This is where all Local-forum-lovers would be supposed to spend their time. Things may go hateful sometimes here but BM game bears no responsibility for whatever happens here (there would be moderators to control the situation).

Dante Silverfire

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I hope you realize, that even thought many things you did as ruler were inspired by forums... also, things which should have not been known certain people IG got to know those things through forums which eventually caused a lot trouble to you and your realm.

I don't believe that my actions were inspired by the forums, but I do agree some things have been spread on the forum about IG stuff which shouldn't have been.

Overall though, I believe the forum, and the locals section of it in particular are a net benefit for our realm.
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egamma

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So, out of the hour (say) that you have to play each day, you consciously choose to take time away from the game to spend on the forum? How interesting. Why do you choose to do that, especially if you acknowledge that it's bad for your game and your characters are too quiet? Doesn't really make any sense, unless of course you find the forum to be more interesting than the game itself. Do you?

Personally, the time I spend on the forum comes after I have finished whatever it is I'm doing in the game; if time is limited, the game gets what I have until I've done what needs doing, then if I have time and feel like it I check out the forum.

The forums are interesting because people post here, while half of the in-game messages I get are automated reports. So yes, human communication is more interesting than machine generated messages.

I come here when I'm done reading my IG messages; the problem is, I could be spending more time writing letters, but I don't because the forums are...easier, I guess. I'm also a global moderator so I sorta need to keep up with threads, even if I don't post in all of them.

Geronus

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I come here when I'm done reading my IG messages; the problem is, I could be spending more time writing letters, but I don't because the forums are...easier, I guess. I'm also a global moderator so I sorta need to keep up with threads, even if I don't post in all of them.

Sure you could, but would you? Presumably if you had any incentive to send more messages IG, you already would be. That's certainly the case for me.

Nothing about the forums discourages people from sending messages IG. Sure, people can get a lot of information on the forums, but I have significant doubts that if it didn't exist, people would suddenly start reaching out to get the same information IG. Maybe a very few highly active players would suddenly feel the need to develop intelligence sources elsewhere, but those players probably already cultivate them. Everyone else would simply shrug and make do without the additional information. I know I would. I enjoy forum discussions. I don't particularly enjoy writing dozens of IG messages a day to characters that may or may not bother to respond just to get the sort of every day news you can get on the forum.

Look, the only way to increase activity in the game is to make the game itself more interesting. Without considering design changes that means dramatically increasing player density, which means growing the player base or removing islands, both of which topics are already under discussion elsewhere.

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Being a former Admin to a Sci-fi RP community. I can exactly confirm to you how detrimental things like this are. You have your game but people take their discussions outside of it. Something that should never happen no matter what. Because these discussions took place outside of the games environment they end up poisoning the games flow.

That said when i also ran the communities IRC. I made it explicitly clear that if i caught 1 hint of IRC discussions influencing RP's and IC decisions. I would shut it down immediately. Something i actually ended up doing.... After the loss of the IRC (in the community the IRC was the equiv of forummasters and the forums battlemasters) Suddenly you see things become correct and proper again. People started enjoying the notions of PM'ing for the sake of PM's. They started using forum tags to identify if its RP message and such. It simply worked better when the evil was rooted out.

So i for one actually like knowing the locals and RP boards are going to be closed. If people want to preserve their long going stories. They should either write a Wiki page or simply save the discussions to a txt file and carry on in their gameplay.
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Geronus

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Being a former Admin to a Sci-fi RP community. I can exactly confirm to you how detrimental things like this are. You have your game but people take their discussions outside of it. Something that should never happen no matter what. Because these discussions took place outside of the games environment they end up poisoning the games flow.

That said when i also ran the communities IRC. I made it explicitly clear that if i caught 1 hint of IRC discussions influencing RP's and IC decisions. I would shut it down immediately. Something i actually ended up doing.... After the loss of the IRC (in the community the IRC was the equiv of forummasters and the forums battlemasters) Suddenly you see things become correct and proper again. People started enjoying the notions of PM'ing for the sake of PM's. They started using forum tags to identify if its RP message and such. It simply worked better when the evil was rooted out.

So i for one actually like knowing the locals and RP boards are going to be closed. If people want to preserve their long going stories. They should either write a Wiki page or simply save the discussions to a txt file and carry on in their gameplay.

People don't talk IC (exclusive of the RP board anyway) or plan strategy on the forums. They might on IRC, but we've had an active IRC community for years, long before we had a forum.

Tom

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The forums are interesting because people post here, while half of the in-game messages I get are automated reports. So yes, human communication is more interesting than machine generated messages.

And human communication is in part down because people have taken it to the forums. Even if just 20% of the stuff posted in locals previous can be directed back into the game again, that will noticeably increase the number of messages posted there, which in turn might bring people like you to add to it again, increasing communication in-game further.

Anaris

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And human communication is in part down because people have taken it to the forums. Even if just 20% of the stuff posted in locals previous can be directed back into the game again, that will noticeably increase the number of messages posted there, which in turn might bring people like you to add to it again, increasing communication in-game further.

But what percent of the stuff posted in Locals previously was posted specifically because the Locals board provided an opportunity for people to talk with people outside their realm?
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